


Holdfast

by honey_wheeler



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Episode Spoilers, Gen, S08E03, episode fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 18:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18643969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: Lyanna knows she will not run, not this day. This is her battle and she will fight it.Warnings for S08E03 spoilers





	Holdfast

There is no question in her mind.

There is fear, more fear than she thought herself capable of. More fear than she knew could exist in the world. There is sadness, and pain. There is pride. But above all, there is certainty. She could run, she knows. No one would blame her, no one would judge her. She could retreat to fight another front, let the warriors – the men – protect her as they fought to kill the giant or died trying.

But Lyanna remembers the Unsullied. She remembers how they’d milled uneasily about Winterfell, looking as out of place as they seemed to feel, yet still they’d held their ranks on the battlefield, protecting people they didn’t know in a place they’d never been before now. 

She remembers the Dothraki, how a group of them had seen her eyeing one of their massive curved blades and had laughed and showed it to her, one of them supporting her grip so she could try wielding it. It was too heavy for her arms to hold alone. They’d all ridden to greet death with a fierce cry and all the speed they could muster, as if they fought protect something of their own.

Lyanna knows she will not run, not this day. This is her battle and she will fight it.

The giant catches her quickly when she charges, easily. She didn’t expect anything else, but still her heart stutters in dismay. His grip is like a vise, and if she’d held any illusion that this would not mean her death, it would have vanished with the crackle of her ribs breaking as he crumpled her armor the way a normal man would a piece of parchment. 

Part of her – the part that, until now, believed she might yet live to see another dawn – marvels at the size of the creature, at its strength. Lyanna has seen a giant before, a giant who was still a man, but it’s not the sort of thing that could ever seem commonplace. Dacey used to tell her tales of giants before she went off to a war she never returned from. She’d tickle Lyanna and tell her that hungry giants came to eat little girls who skipped their training lessons, “Even the lessons at dawn that little girls would rather sleep through.”

Dacey had died protecting her King. Lyanna lifts her blade and takes her aim, and thinks Dacey would be proud to know her little sister is about to die protecting the world.


End file.
